


Nightmares are about losing you (It's true)

by LaurylBerrington



Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Sad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:54:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25118713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaurylBerrington/pseuds/LaurylBerrington
Summary: Post 5x12 - “It’s your choice. If you want me, I’m here.”And Santana? I was. I was there, you just had to say the word. I am still here, waiting and hoping to be your choice. There is no way I will be able to move on without proof. I have to know.I have to know if your answer is that simple – simply this: you just don't want me anymore.
Relationships: Dani/Santana Lopez, Santana Lopez/Brittany S. Pierce
Comments: 7
Kudos: 33





	1. Measure Time, Measure Love

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever Brittana/Glee fanfic. If you have any pointers for me on how I can improve upon my writing, go ahead and tell me, please :)
> 
> Forgive any mistakes, as this is un-beta'd as of right now. English isn't my native language.

Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I decide that I have been standing in front of the door to the loft for way too long already and that's why I gather all my courage and knock on the door. A part of me is hoping to see your beautiful brown eyes when the door finally slides open but the eyes looking back aren't yours. Disappointment floods my system and it must show on my face, I think. I don't know, I've never really been good at knowing what my face is betraying about my feelings inside.

Kurt is looking at me with so much sympathy in his eyes that it makes me want to turn back and leave the way I came. You must have told him all about our last encounter. His voice is soothing when he speaks: “She isn't here, Britt. I'm sorry. I-” He is hesitating. Is it the pity? Is this embarrassing for him, too? He swallows whatever he was about to say, “Listen, some guys from NYADA invited me out tonight. Why don't you come with us, have some fun and let loose? You know, you have to experience this at least once if you're already here, don't you? This is New York City, Brittany!” His enthusiasm is genuine as is his smile, and I can feel how the corners of my mouth twitch, mirroring his expression.

There is a moment where Kurt's face seems to fall, as if he were remembering something and his smile is suddenly a lot more strained than before. I wonder if it's because he just remembered you will be there, too. Will you want to see me at all? Will you be alone?

Despite every instinct I have telling me that I really shouldn't do this, I give in. Feeling myself nodding at Kurt's question and accepting the invitation to this party, I feel my heartbeat speeding up. I can't just leave without laying my eyes on you one more time. Not when I came here specifically to see you again. I need to know, Santana. I know you are going to be there. You really should be more selective about what you post on social media. Now that I am already in New York, I have to see you.

Will it be the last time? I can't say. I know that with every fibre of my being, with all that I am, I hope that it isn't. Once upon a time I would never have doubted that we were meant to be. That someday, maybe some years down the road, you and I would meet again and we would be together, happy, in love. I can't remember a time where I wasn't in love with you. Loving you has been a constant in my life since we first became friends. Even back then when sex wasn't dating and you pretended that what we were doing was only physical, I loved you. I don't think I will ever stop. I don't think I want to stop.

The thing about my feelings for you is that I really believe they are infinite.  
In physics, especially regarding cosmology and the origins of existence, I learned, the question of whether the universe is infinite is an open question. It's not something we know. The question remains if we can even know, without a doubt. My love for you does not bring up any such doubts within me.

Memories come flooding in. Memories from the last time I had taken all my courage and opened myself up to you. You used to know all of me, Santana. You used to be the one person that knew all the parts that make me what I am. The one that was not even surprised when other people started calling me a genius, too. Because you knew me way before anyone else did. You used to be mine.  
And I used to be yours. The best thing that had ever been yours, you'd sung. Before...

I was so sure, back then, more than ever before. Laying it all out for you to decide had been one of the scariest things I have ever had to do but still, even after what happened, I can't bring myself to regret it. Santana, you deserve it all – all the love, all the honesty. I just wish that you had thought that I deserved it all, too.

I offered myself up. Everything that I am, everything that I have to give, everything that I will be – I wanted you to be there for it all.  
"I really want to be with you, Santana,” I had said. “I’ve seen the world, and I’m sure now more than ever that I belong with you. And I’m sure your girlfriend’s great, but you can’t recreate what you and I have.” I remember leaning down to press a kiss to your cheek, I remember the erratic beating of my heart as I let myself be the most vulnerable I had ever been, when I whispered, “It’s your choice. If you want me, I’m here.”

And Santana? I was. I was there, you just had to say the word. I am still here, waiting and hoping to be your choice. I can't quite bring myself to follow this thought through, to decide whether I am reading the signs right. If I am, then I am wrong being here. But what if I am wrong and there is still something between the two of us? There is no way I will be able to move on without proof. I have to know.  
I have to know if your answer is that simple – simply this: you just don't want me anymore.

Thinking back, I recognize that I had let myself be swept away by the way you'd tried to help me reconnect with my old self. I remember thinking that you were doing this because you loved me, just as I loved you. I remember thinking that this meant you wanted not only my old self back, but me back.  
Really, I should've listened to what you were telling me: “Please don’t do this, okay? I have worked my ass off to get over you.” If I had listened, I might have heard you whispering, “I am over you, Brittany,” in the subtext of these words. I chose not to. I thought there was still something I could do or say to make you see.

See me, waiting for you. Always waiting for you, Santana.

Remember our junior year? I've always been waiting for you and your love. Waiting for you to be ready, waiting for just the right moment when we'd get together and stay together forever.

You never came to me after that. You kept your distance, ignored a dozen phone calls, tons of texts and disappeared. I can't even begin to tell you how my heart broke with every single rejected call, every unanswered, unread text.

There is a certain pain found in rejection. It hurts a lot if someone tells you that they don't want to see you or be with you anymore. Let me tell you, Santana, I think that silent rejection is way worse than that. Because when someone just cancels you out, not letting you process any way of goodbye, that's when you are left behind with waves upon waves of words stuck in your throat, with feelings trapped within your heart and no way to exorcise them, with tears that keep falling but never stop burning – and it's then that those waves crash over you without reprieve and take you with them until you are drowning within this sea of hurt.

* * *

Kurt is off talking to some people he knows from NYADA. He looked guilty when they came to drag him away but I could only give him a small smile to show him that it was okay for him to go and have some fun. I am here for you, not for him, after all.

The club is packed and there's bodies all around me, the loud music washing over us all. I can't stop the way my body wakes up, and I start dancing. Music has always had this effect on me, waking something primal within my brain, making me unable to sit still. At the same time, nothing has helped me calm down my inner agitation better than moving my body along to music. Briefly, I manage to close my eyes and let myself be carried away with the pumping of the bass. It's a visceral feeling. The sound waves crashing against my skin, vibrating in my chest, my jaw; making my whole skeleton reverberate with the touch of sound. And soon after that, all of me is oscillating along.

The best memories I have are when you and I were oscillating together, our bodies humming along. When you and I were dancing together, those were the moments I realized what being alive really means. Breathing you in, feeling your breath hotly on my skin when you breathed out; hearts pumping blood, cheeks flushing from exertion and closeness. Bodies warming up together, for another. With you, I knew, I'd never be cold again.

I don't know what it is that makes me open my eyes. It feels like a magnetic pull out of nowhere but I instinctively open them and look to my right. I think, maybe you were staring.

Our eyes meet and I see how your muscles tense. I have always been good at reading your body, Santana. Maybe it's because for the longest time, it was the only way you ever allowed the two of us to talk. Your movements are stiff and you lack the elegance I am so accustomed to when you are dancing. You are not dancing, tonight, you are merely forcing movements out. It hurts me to see it.

What hurts me even more is that when focus on your eyes, I feel like I can't see. Your face is neutral, tense and blank. Your body isn't giving me any cues, and for the first time, I realize that I was always good at reading you because you let me. Now, communication has stopped between us, in all kinds of ways. There's no softness left for me anymore when you look at me. I can see the back of your girlfriend's head, still swaying to the music while being led by you. She's safe, she's in your arms and there's nothing that hurts more than what you do next. It's such a simple gesture. I see how your arms around her pull her that little bit closer to you. I remember what it's like when you do that. Something tells me that I will always remember how it feels when you don't, too.

And then, you shake your head. It's the first thing you have allowed me to read, today. And I wish that I had not seen it. I wish I wouldn't understand. If only I really was as clueless as everyone back at McKinley believed me to be, I could keep pretending, but I can't.

It's this - this is the moment when my questions are answered, once and for all. You're over me. The simple answer really is that you don't want me like that anymore. I have come here to see it for myself and I just have. Your eyes leave mine and I know that this is it.

I sense a hot tear run down my left cheek. Suddenly, all these feelings that were threatening to overwhelm me a mere seconds ago are gone. I can't feel anything. I feel as if someone has cut me off. Now, the vibrations of sound only rattle me.

I watch you take her hand, and I remember how your hand felt in mine. I remember but I also have to accept that it's not me anymore, the one you want so close. This time, it really is goodbye and I have to let you go. Tonight – and maybe every night for the rest of my life, I will be there, dancing on my own but not with you. The song ends, the music dies and a part of me does, too.

You are dragging her off the dance floor. I don't know where you are headed but I know that you're going somewhere I can't follow.

This, right now, is your future. She is. And she's the one going home with you.

You know, I always thought of you as my home. I feel so lost without you. Despite everything, I hadn't realized until this moment just how much I needed to feel linked to you. We were always linked. I can't help but wish that you were there to link our pinkies together because I need this anchor. Now that you are gone, I feel like I am floating in space – and it scares me. What if space and time are indeed infinite? What if I will never feel connected ever again? What if time will just pass me by and keeps passing me by, forever and ever?

I had not even noticed that I'd stopped dancing until a guy crashes into me, grumbling, sending my body spinning. Everything is spinning, and everything feels upside down. Suddenly, the bodies around me feel like they are trapping me in their midst and I can't escape this feeling pressing down on me. My head, my chest, everything is too tight, to small to contain the vast emptiness within me.

I feel dizzy and I realize that I am breathing too hard, too fast, too shallow. It's all wrong. I don't know how to do this, Santana. I don't know where I am supposed to go from here. I wish I was back at MIT where I could rely on vectors to give me direction when you weren't there to orient me like you always did. You were my compass, Santana. Without you, I get lost.

I need to find my direction again, and this time, it will be without you guiding me. For one moment, time stands still, rewinds, and I can see you guiding her out of the dancing crowd. My breath hitches, the meaning not lost on me. Then, the memory fades and I am back in the here and now. I haven't managed to make any progress on my time machine, sadly. I am confined to the linear passage of time, going forwards, never backwards, just like everybody else. Trying to slow my own breathing to avoid a panic attack I wonder if that might be a good thing. At least this way, I know I can't get stuck, just lost.

I just hope that time will treat me kindly and maybe, one day, I will be able to think about you and this moment and not feel like the emptiness within me is as endless as my feelings for you. Maybe one day, I will remember how beautiful you are when you are dancing. Maybe I will think about how much I love you and I will smile.

Maybe, in time, I will stop waiting, too.  
Goodbye, Santana.


	2. Interlude: In Memoriam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remembering Naya Rivera - Rest easy, Naya.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These past days have been very sad and a difficult time for a lot of people. Brittana and Naya Rivera in particular meant a lot to me growing up. I wanted to write this as a tribute to her, as an acknowledgement of how important her character has been and will always be to us all. She helped a lot of people and she inspired even more.

Black. That's the first thing invading my perception, interrupted by flashes of blinding brightness. It takes a few moments, then – colour, and light, a kaleidoscope of life – an after-image burned into my retina. I am not sure if it's because I have just opened my eyes or why it is that I can finally see – maybe for the first time in my life, I can see. Everything around me has an acute sharpness to it – the canopy of the trees, every trunk, every root; carved out of the blurriness of green by the interplay of light and dark.

It's raining, pearls of water pinching my scalp, wetting my hair. It's not an unpleasant feeling, instead, I felt like the rain is washing away any fears I might have. Even the thunder, roaring from afar, can't unsettle me. The lightning, sharp contrast in the dark, bright and immaculate white, a celebration of energy.

An earthy smell surrounds me, filling up my nostrils and making me feel grounded in a way I haven't experienced like this ever before. Where am I? It's still fairly dark around me, a sliver of light expanding on the horizon but not quite enough, and I can just barely make out a clearing where the walls of trees are giving way to a beautiful sight: You.

The most beautiful sight of all, if you ask me.

I want to say things like 'you are so beautiful that it's breathtaking', but that would be doing you a disservice. It's not true because your beauty doesn't take – it just adds. Looking at you, I can feel myself fill up to the brim with love and awe. You have always added so much to my life and in this moment, I am sure that I will never let go of that. I don't even know if I could. You've become a part of my story, and thus, part of me. I am Brittany, and you are Santana. It doesn't have to be more complicated than that for it to be the most abundant source of harmony I can think of.

You are sleeping peacefully, moss being your pillow to rest your head, roots your bed. I've never seen you this unguarded and it's making every barricade I have built around myself crumble into nothingness. In this clearing, only openness can exist. Slow breaths make your chest rise and fall rhythmically and I am entranced by the melody you are breathing to. I wish I could hear your song – would it be calling out to me? Would you?

I can feel the blades of grass cutting against my naked feet. The ground is cool and wet, dew making it a slippery slope, all the while helping me glide towards the middle of the clearing. Closer to you. Every singular drop of water makes it look like the ground is covered in shards of pristine glass once the breaking of dawn is bathing the scene before me in a golden sheet of light.

Neither the blades nor the shards can hurt me, though, Their sharpness is a kind one, a reminder of being alive rather than a damaging entity. I feel surrounded by benign nature, cradling me into its soothing embrace. The rain is just another layer, a glistening sheet protecting me against the unfeeling nothingness – the greatest danger of it all. Soaking it all in – allowing myself to feel it all, I know I have come to the right place. And it's your place, too.

Once I reach your resting form, I can't help but fall to my knees. It might be the overwhelming beauty of the scene in front of me, or it might be because I have an unrelenting need to touch you, to feel your warmth against my palms. Slowly, my hand is closing the distance between our bodies, forming a bridge from me to you. As my skin touches yours, my breath catches.

Your warmth on my fingertips, the softness of your cheeks when I let my hand caress your face feel so familiar to me that for a moment, I wonder if this is a memory or if this is happening right now. It's like I am suspended in this moment in time. It's the past, it's the present – and it is also the future: it is everything, all at once.

Fragments of your soul are palpable in every element of this clearing – all a part of nature, and nature a part of you, inextricably bonded together. A amalgamation of molecules, energies and plain life force. It feels like witnessing the essence of all living things – from the atoms and elements forged in the deepest hearts of dying stars – a death necessary to give birth; a sacrifice of cosmic proportions, bringing ordered existence to the universe: one thing giving way so another can take its place - to the very forces making me draw a breath.

Letting my fingers follow the weaves of your dark hair, flowing like liquid onyx, shimmering in a deep black, I lean in closer. I want to kiss you, but more than that, I want you to open your eyes. I wish that you can see me like this and I hope you can read it all in my eyes.

“Santana,” I try to whisper. My voice is louder than I intended it to be, but soon, the roll of thunder is cutting off my utterance. I don't know if it was me calling your name, or the sky crackling with the heat of lightning, but your eyelids begin to flutter.

I hold my breath, my eyes roaming your face. I don't want to miss any second of this – it's the most wonderful spectacle of nature to witness, you waking up. The way your eyes adapt to the light after having been hidden behind those delicate lids, making the fluttering come to a halt. Now I can see the sharp dark brown of your eyes looking up, and you don't hesitate to lock your gaze with mine. The way your pupils constrict in an effort to focus on me, being so close, makes me feel as if I was the most important thing in the whole world.

Your eyes are mesmerizing. It looks like there's a fire burning in them, and I know that it's just a small representation of the fire that is burning within you – powerful and steady. Do you know that whenever you enter a room, your presence is felt by everyone? I don't know if you even notice it, but I do. You are a magnetic force, and I am attuned to your every move.

I know I am staring at you but I can't help it. I've always felt like you could read me by looking into my eyes, whenever I allowed myself to look into yours. I don't know what it is that you see in mine, right now, but suddenly, you are lifting your body off the ground, coming to a stop directly in front of my face. I can feel your breath on my lips. Captivated, my gaze never leaves yours. You lean forward and bring your lips to mine.

By instinct, my arms extend to hold you, and bring you closer to me as our lips stay linked in a chaste but powerful kiss. It's more a touch than kissing, but to me, it's worth everything. A sigh escapes you, and I can hear my heartbeat pulsing in my ears. My heart, it's racing.

“Santana-,” I start, but it comes out as a whimper, and I don't even know what it is I want to tell you with it. I just needed to taste your name on my tongue before letting it escape through my lips.

“I am here. You have me. All of me, Britt,” is what you breathe against my mouth, hot and steady. Like fire.

I don't say anything in response to that. All I can do is pull you back for a kiss, a deeper one this time, hoping that it conveys everything I want to say but can't find the words to.

* * *

I open my eyes and with the last tendrils of the dream still clinging to my consciousness, I feel myself slipping into confusion. It was just a dream – but how much of myself in that dream was nothing if not pure reality? The depth of emotion is overwhelming me and I try to take some steady and deep breaths to find some purchase on the slippery slope of my feelings.

The room is bathed in darkness, the sun not shining through the blinds like it usually does in the early hours of morning, telling me that it's still very early – or very late, depending on your definition of these things, I guess.

I can't quite shake the hold this dream has on me and it is not without fondness that I have to admit that I am not sure I really want to. It might have been merely a dream but the inspiration is definitely real; it is because you are real, Santana.

Now more than ever, I know that you will always be with me – in my mind and always in my heart.

I know I haven't been able to forget you, and I am sure I never will.


End file.
